Texas Monthly

How Frances Jalet, one of the first women to graduate from Columbia Law School, and Fred Cruz, the first inmate to write a lawsuit on toilet paper that went all the way to the Supreme Court, teamed up to take on the Texas Department of Corrections for unconstitutional punishments and brutality.

Inside the $1 million plot to execute—in broad daylight—the attorney of a Mexican cartel boss, and the subsequent investigation, which ranged from south of the border to Florida and Texas, to solve the murder.

“Nearly thirty years after he died in relative obscurity, songwriter Blaze Foley is on the verge of newfound fame thanks to an Ethan Hawke–directed biopic. In a series of dispatches from her time on set, Sybil Rosen, widely known as Foley’s muse, ponders the widening divide between the man and the legend.”

Someone poisoned eighteen of the Birdsong family’s calves in the past four years by feeding them a mysterious grain. But who? And why? Texas Monthly writer-at-large Leif Reigstad digs into a confounding true-crime cold case with no leads, no motive, no patterns, and no suspects.

Can a man be convicted of second-degree murder for building a water slide? Where’s the line between thrill-seeking and willful negligence? After indictments following the death of 10-year old Caleb Schwab on the “Verrückt” slide at Schlitterbahn water park, we’re going to find out.

Federal authorities struggled to identify the team of violent criminals who were robbing armored cars in Houston, Texas. When they finally got their break, the news shocked some local people, and not everyone believes it.

Draylen Mason was more than good at everything he did, he was brilliant. He was a musical prodigy who wanted to be a neurosurgeon, and just days after he died, he was accepted to Oberlin Conservatory of Music. At Texas Monthly, Michael Hall tries to make sense of a senseless death.